2 Comments:

We have noted, on a number of occasions, the inclination of The Jewish Week and the Forward to air the allegations made by several women of misconduct on the part of a prominent rabbi they’d consulted on marital problems. The stories were bereft of hard fact, consisted essentially of supposition and vague accusation, and, while identifying the rabbi in much detail, did not identify his alleged victims.

At one point, however, both went from the vacuous and incendiary to the ridiculous, focusing on the "scandal" of an investigating beit din having disclosed the identities of his accusers to the rabbi. We opined that it seemed ludicrous, and not particularly constructive, to suggest that a serious inquiry could be mounted without permitting the accused to confront his accusers. It escaped us how someone could address charges lodged against him or her without knowing who was making them.

In its March 4 edition, The Jewish Week carried a bylined article by its (drum roll, please) “Publisher and Editor,” Gary Rosenblatt, who has led the charge on this issue in his paper. The story described the formation of — and proclaimed the virtues of — a free-standing organization to deal with questions of various forms of abuse. Incredibly, if we read Rosenblatt correctly, the primary impetus for the new organization is a desire to address the "shortcoming" of the beit din procedures that permitted the disclosure to the rabbi of his accusers’ identities.

We have reservations about the authority of an organization that has no halachic standing to deal with such serious and consequential matters. But we wonder how it is, in any event, to be taken seriously if it is not, by design, to be an impartial forum.